Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (53 page)

But I knew what neither of them seemed to understand—Kaylee wasn’t right for him. She wanted to “fix” him—to drive out every dark impulse that didn’t fit into her romantic ideal. She was sterilizing him, bit by bit, excising the pieces she didn’t like, as if love were a buffet you could pick and choose from. She didn’t understand that those dark bits were an important part of him. Those were the bits of his soul that recognized its match in mine. The parts that let him see me as more than a born predator.

“I need to know one more thing, Syrie.” I took a deep breath, silently stamping down my own nerves. “I need to know if I’m ever going to get him back.”

The only indication that she’d even heard me was the smooth slide of her pencil from the inside cover of the notebook to the first page, where her fingers moved almost too fast for me to follow. Syrie was talking to me the only way she knew how—by showing me what she saw.

My heart pounded as the drawing took shape, beautifully detailed, yet frustratingly incomplete. Syrie wasn’t sketching now, content to fill in the details later. She started on the image and drew her way across the surface so that what she’d finished was unmistakable, but the rest of the page was blank.

The wait was agonizing, but the payoff was...unreal.

When she’d finished and moved back to the inside cover, I stared at the image on the first page, rendered all in plum, but expertly shaded, with particular attention to depth and a set of eyes that would be bright blue in life. Kaylee.

I couldn’t see the face of the boy holding her—his embrace too intimate to mean friendship or comfort—but I could see his short curls and the outline of his shoulders. It wasn’t Nash.

For nearly a minute, I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I’d tried and failed to drive a wedge between Nash and Kaylee, when—if I’d been willing to wait—someone else would have done the work for me.

Sure, Nash would be heartbroken for a while, but then he’d get over her. And I would get a second chance. He would finally truly see me again.

“Thank you, Syrie.” I leaned over the table and slowly reached for the notebook, afraid with every second that she’d snatch it away. But her pencil never paused, the exposed tip flattened now, almost flush with the wood around it. She kept sketching as I carefully tore the first page from the notebook and folded it, then slid it into my back pocket, eager to go. I only had minutes left before the harpies would come back, and I’d only gotten half of what I needed from Neiderwald.

When I stood, Syrie looked up, as if surprised to realize she wasn’t alone. Her right eye—her
only
eye—was still bright green and shiny, and she was as alert as I’d ever seen her. But when she blinked, her disfigured left eyelid didn’t completely close, and I had the sudden eerie certainty that the empty eye socket still watched me, and that it somehow saw more than her remaining eye ever could.

Uncomfortable, I glanced down at the table—and gasped at what she’d drawn on the inside cover of the notebook. Emma, in perfect detail from the terror in her eyes to the dark freckle high on one cheek. And behind her, holding her, if the suggestion of an arm around her waist was accurate, was Troy, broad, dark wings spread and ready. All around them stood mounds of stuff—junk, mostly—collected by the harpies over a lifetime.

“Oh, shit! When is this? Is this now?” I asked, not really expecting an answer, yet hoping for one anyway. Em could be a pain, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be eaten alive. Besides, if I started feeding the harpies, they’d expect a meal
every
time I came.... But Syrie just turned to her drawing again and began detailing Troy’s arm.

I ran for the door, hardly noticing the art I stepped on, then raced through the living room and into the grimy kitchen, where I threw open the basement door. The stairwell was dark but a weak glow lit the bottom step and a rare glimpse of the concrete floor. I heard nothing and sensed no movement from below.

Emma was fine. Troy didn’t have her yet. And if I got back in the car and drove off now, I could probably prevent whatever Syrie had seen the start of.

Or...I could get what else I’d come for. But could I manage both?

I started down the stairs slowly at first, to make sure I was really alone, but once I was sure, I pounded down the rest of the steps and skidded to a stop in the lone patch of uncluttered floor. For one long moment, I could only gape at the huge basement, lit by one bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. I’d seen it once before, but my memory of their stash didn’t do it justice. Or maybe their collection had grown.

There was stuff
everywhere
. Stacks of it, spilling over and under tables, burying chairs. Drifts of it, piled against the walls. There were clothes, books, toys, dishes, patches of carpet, parts from cars, and even a tower of roof shingles, obviously never used. They had coins, jewelry, polished stones, and glittering hunks of glass in all colors. There were photos, and pillows, and a table piled high with pill bottles, an entire tribute to the pharmaceutical industry, the contents of which they’d probably never even sampled—a tragic waste.

But the worst—or the best, depending on your viewpoint—was a series of human bones displayed on long shelves in descending size order, from femurs all the way past phalanges to bones too small for me to identify, crowned by a macabre display of naked skulls on the top shelf.

There were even four complete skeletons, wired together and hanging from the ceiling, adorned in jewelry no doubt plucked from the sea of junk.

The whole thing was overwhelming. It was disgusting. It was...a lot to have to sort through. And I only had minutes.

I scanned the basement quickly, and when none of the skeletons turned out to be wearing what I wanted, my gaze snagged on a low table covered in boxes full of shiny things, so I picked my way through the ocean of junk toward it.

Normally, I’m not into jewelry—piercings don’t count; they’re body art—but I’d worn the necklace Nash gave me every single day. Until the night Nea had demanded it as payment for a chance to find him. I’d handed it over, but promised myself that I’d get it back, first chance I got.

But the table held dozens of jewelry boxes, most full of tarnished junk, and I had no way of knowing if there was another stash just like it buried beneath a pile of clothes or a stack of books. So I took them one at a time, tossing rings, earrings, necklaces, and brooches over my shoulder, then shoving the empty boxes onto the pile. I’d gone through eight of them before I finally found my necklace, buried in a pile of silver-plated rings and charms. Holding it again was like holding it for the first time, the night Nash had given it to me.

The silver horse shone in the light from above, wavy suggestion of a mane blowing back in some unseen wind as she raced toward something I was sure I’d been chasing all my life. Her stylized rider was golden and willowy, riding bareback and naked, long hair trailing behind her. Nash said it reminded him of me. Of the old stories about
maras
riding people in their sleep, feeding from their bad dreams, and the archaic association of the word
Nightmare
with a female horse.

I would only have given the necklace up for a chance to find Nash, and now that I’d found him, I wanted it back, so I could hold at least that piece of him, while Kaylee claimed the rest.

I slid the chain over my neck and tucked the horse and rider into my shirt—then froze at the familiar dry whisper of wings folding and unfolding behind me, a habit comparable to fidgeting in humans and a sure sign that the harpy who’d snuck up on me was either excited or pissed off. Or both.

Shit, shit, shit!
I turned slowly to find Troy watching me from the bottom step, his leathery black bat-like wings half extended behind him. “You broke the rules.”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to carve that on my headstone.” But not for a while, hopefully.

“That means I get to break one, too,” he said, and before I could argue, he glanced over his shoulder and shouted. “Nea! Come look what I found!”

A second later, Nea jogged down the steps, followed by Desi and the third female harpy, all missing their jackets. They’d dropped the human disguises in their own home.

“Sabine wants her bauble back, and I think we should let her keep it. But she’s gonna have to leave us something else instead.” Troy stalked toward me, and I looked past him to the stairs. But Nea stood at the base of them, and I’d never get past her.

“Hold her,” Nea ordered, and the two other girl harpies rushed me.

I punched the first one in the gut, but before she even hit the ground, Desi grabbed my other arm and nearly dislocated my shoulder. I can hold my own in a fair fight, but two on one? While the other two had harpy speed and strength, claws instead of nails, and jaws that could bite through a human tibia? I should have brought a weapon.

The downed harpy stood and Troy grabbed my right hand. “I think this little piggy is a fair trade, don’t you?”

“Piggies are toes, dumbass,” I snapped.

Troy only shrugged. “Want something to squeeze, for the pain?”

I glanced pointedly at his groin, my heart racing so fast my vision was starting to blur. “How ’bout something to break off?”

He shook his head slowly and squeezed my fingers until I had to bend them or let him snap them. Then he pulled my index finger back up, preparing to rip it off. “Should I count to three?”

But before I could answer, a loud thud came from the kitchen. Something heavy crashed down the stairs, tumbling end over end. Nea jumped out of the way in time to avoid the rolling wooden cart, but the microwave hit her leg when it flew off the top. She went down, stunned, but not out.

Emma ran halfway down the stairs holding the rail in one hand and a steak knife in the other, and I blinked, sure I was hallucinating. I would never have expected fight over flight from her. Did she actually give a damn about me, even after I’d driven her straight into hell? Or did she just want the car keys?

Troy dropped my fist and ran to help Nea. I jerked my left hand from Desi and punched the other harpy. Then I stumbled my way through the piles of junk toward the stairs. But Emma was gone.

Pulse racing, I whirled around to find her in the middle of the basement, buried knee-deep in crap, eyes wide with fear, jaw stiff with defiance. Troy stood behind her, one arm tight around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Just like in Syrie’s picture.

“Em, you okay?” I asked, as the three others gathered around them, heedless of the mess they stood in. All four sets of harpy eyes watched me, shining in the light from overhead. All four bodies looked tense and eager to lunge at me, finger-claws ready to shred flesh.

“Been better,” Emma said, and I was surprised by how steady she sounded. “What the hell is all this?”

“You were supposed to stay in the car.”

She shrugged, the gesture limited by Troy’s grip on her. “I
told
you I had to pee.”

“I think I’d rather have this than your tiny little finger.” Troy stuck his nose into Emma’s hair and she flinched, but remained resolutely, impressively still while he sniffed her. “She looks good enough to eat.”

If I gave her to them, they’d let me go. But though I was a predator, I wasn’t a murderer, and crossing that line would make Nash see me like everyone else did—as a monster. Hell,
I’d
see me as a monster if I left her, especially since she’d come down to help me.

But Em saw my moment of indecision, and that’s when she truly started to panic. “Sabine...?” She struggled against Troy’s grip, but he held her easily.

“Let her go.”

Troy’s mocking smile widened. “But she’s good for several meals, and I swear we’d savor every bite.”

“Get the hell off me, you sick fuck,” Emma spat. And I realized she was going to try something an instant before she threw her head back.

There was an audible crunch, then a screech as Troy dropped her to grip his ruined nose. Emma ran for the stairs. Nea and the other harpies lunged for her. Pulse racing, I spun in search of a weapon and grabbed the only possibility nearby—a human femur.

I turned as the redheaded harpy tripped over a box on the floor and went down hard, and I was already scrambling after the other two, Nea in the lead.

Emma hit the first step and grabbed the rail.

Stumbling over a cracked mop bucket, I fought for balance then swung the bone. The ball joint smashed into Desi’s skull, and I spared a moment to be thankful she hadn’t spread her wings, probably because of the low ceiling.

The redheaded harpy crouched and hissed at me as Nea grabbed a handful of Emma’s hair and hauled her down three steps to the floor.

I swung again as the redhead raked pointed almost-claws toward my face. Her nails scored my cheek. My club—someone’s bone—slammed into her temple. The old femur broke in half, but she was down for the count.

At the base of the staircase, Nea stood with one hand tangled in Emma’s hair, the other around her throat. Emma looked scared, but she was holding it together. I stepped forward, ready to fight bare-handed since I’d lost my club—until something heavy landed on my back.

I stumbled forward, scrambling to regain my balance, and Troy’s screechy voice whispered in my ear. “Shoulda just let me have her....” He threw his weight to one side, trying to knock me off balance. If he hadn’t been light—necessary physiology for anything that flies—that would have worked. Instead, I braced one hand against the wall and reached back with the other. My fist curled around a leathery handful of wing, edged by a long, thin bone, like the elongated fingers that frame a bat’s wings.

I pulled. Hard. Something tore with a satisfying, visceral pop. Troy screamed and when he fell, his wing ripped all the way to the pointed joint at the top. His screech hit notes that would have made a
bean sidhe
wince.

Troy would never fly again.

While he screamed and clutched what he could reach of his ruined wing, I race-shuffled through piles of junk toward the stairs, where Nea had already hauled Emma halfway to the first floor.